Filling Tags

[Tlrussell]

Because you have tags, are you required to fill them?

I hear a lot of guys talking about tags they need to fill.

Take what you need?

Consider-

The tragedy of the commons refers to a situation in which individuals with access to a public resource (also called a common) act in their own interest and, in doing so, ultimately deplete the resource.

 

[bigsky2]

The majority of my Montana tags go unfilled and even when I draw tags out of state I don’t feel the need to fill them.

 

[brockel]

If the people that are paid to manage the wildlife decide to issue the tags might as well fill them. They know what’s best just ask them.

 

[nrpate05]

Meh, I thought tags were meant to be piled up in a desk drawer for decades...

 

[Pucky Freak]

Hunting with family growing up we’d always try and get as many WT tags as we could, and it was always “we have X tags to fill.” Meat hunters, any legal animal was immediately taken. When I was 20 I read a book by a western Colorado archery hunter who sat water holes and passed on elk and mulies frequently. He described the animals’ behavior, and learning by watching them close-up. Paradigm shift for me. One of my all-time favorite bowhunting moments was watching a fawn nurse 2 yards from my stand. I had a doe tag, and no desire to fill it that day.

 

[cgasner1]

Wife says if im gonna be gone the freezer better be full so she doesn’t have to buy meat. Part of my season is based of that and part of it gets based off being a animal I want to shoot to end the season

 

[FairWeather]

Is there something specific about MT’s management system that makes this a state specific issue?

 

[Flatbrimmer]

That’s what it’s all about buddy

 

[Trucker]

Non Res. haven't filled my last couple deer tags and didn't fill my Antelope tag last year. just didn't find the right one. plenty of average bucks I could have shot.

 

[Talk2elk]

I believe you take what you need to feed your family or give to needy people with any extra. No shame with that.

 

[Nameless Range]

Some personal thoughts:

Most Montanans, like me, are not particularly good elk hunters. Additionally, most, like me, were taught to never pass on a legal elk.

There’s guys on here who see dozens of “mediocre” bulls a year, and pass on them all, and many years eat their tag. That just is not the typical hunter’s typical experience. If I shot a cow every year for the rest of my life, I’d be happy, and when I don’t have a cow tag I still don’t have it in me to pass on a raghorn. There’s many perspectives out there that I think are totally valid that could be critical of that, but they don’t motivate me enough to pass on raghorns myself. Call it a moral failure or whatever, it just is what it is.

Only in the last four or five years, have I settled into being OK with eating deer tags. I think this is a product of deer being much easier to come by than elk, and thus seeming less “valuable”, but even moreso, it is a product of my memories. I remember what deer hunting was like in the 90s where I now live, and how today’s state of affairs seems a shameful diminishment of that. Increasingly, most Montanans don’t have those memories, and so their baseline of deer hunting is based on what they see on the landscape today - and damn if it ain’t weak in comparison to yesteryear - but they don’t know that.

I’m 39 years old, I’ve been hunting Montana my entire life, and skillwise would classify myself as your average Montana hunter - not that impressive - but I don’t think it’s entirely inaccurate to say that there’s something in our DNA driving us to “fill our tags“.

In conclusion, the only meaningful way we will restrict hunter harvest is through tag and permit allocation as well as season configuration. This whole asking hunters to restrain themselves is as reasonable, and will be as functionally successful, as the communist dream of sharing everything. Unrealistic as hell.

 

[noisy]

I try to shoot one deer and one elk a year (average about every other year on the elk), but I always have a couple tags that go "unfilled." I just apply for stuff so I can go hunt different places, with no real intention of shooting anything necessarily.

 

[DFS]

I don’t fill or have a desire to fill most of my tags. I believe I have more than likely shot my last mule deer in this state 9 years ago. I agree with nameless range that putting it on hunters to show restraint will not happen. With Montana season structure and tag allocation it falls on private landowners to manage wildlife this creates the angst that we have with hunters and landowners. FWP is doing themselves no favors with their lack of management.

 

[D4570]

I usually get 5 or 6 deer tags yearly and try to get in on damage hunts.
I only keep one and sometimes not even that. I give away or donate them to people who need or want a deer and don't or can't hunt. If I don't fill a tag someone doesn't get one.
That is just my take.

 

[Werty]

You live your life, I'll live mine!

 

[Matsprt]

Short answer, no. If given the option, I’ll most often take a dry cow / doe. Better eating and I’m more of a food hunter.
Now that I’ve taken up bow hunting I may not be as picky, less opportunities. Yes, I’d take a big head given the chance but never again. A big stinky rutting pissing all over himself bull…ugh.
As someone else mentioned years ago deer were a given. Passed up many a buck as just too far to pack out. Now I’d prefer a speed goat to a deer.
Others ?? Do as you see right as long as it’s legal.

 

[Scott85]

I can only not fill a tag a couple of times before the wife starts to get mad. She wants a freezer full of meat so I got to make her happy.